Maharashtra is once again going through election season, and in an attempt to stop people from voting for someone else, the Shinde-led Sena and the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) have moved their legislators to various hotels in Mumbai ahead of Friday’s legislative council poll.
Both alliances are closely monitoring their flock in light of the poll’s secret ballot voting in order to keep the group together and prevent any potential cross-voting. Cross-voting in the MLC election brought down the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA administration two and a half years ago and further splintered the Shiv Sena.
Because these elections use a secret ballot system and MLAs frequently vote against party directives, there is typically a fear of cross-voting. All of the main political parties have relocated their MLAs to five-star hotels in Mumbai in order to prevent this. Sources claim that each evening after the assembly session, when the MLAs get back to their different hotels, senior party officials constantly give them instructions on how to vote in accordance with the party’s decision. Since Maharashtra views this election as a semi-final before the state assembly polls, parties are doing everything in their power to guarantee their candidates’ victory.
The ITC Grand Central Hotel in Lower Parel is home to the MLAs of the Shiv Sena (UBT), which is led by Uddhav Thackeray. The Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction) MLAs are located at Taj Lands End in Bandra, while the BJP MLAs remain at Taj President in Colaba. Ajit Pawar’s NCP faction has arranged accommodations for their MLAs at Hotel Lalit in Andheri. Confident in their unity, the Congress has organised a small dinner meeting on Thursday at Hotel Intercontinental in South Mumbai. Observers from the Congress will be arriving from Delhi to brief the MLAs about voting. Interestingly, the NCP(SP), led by Sharad Pawar, has not booked any hotels or organised any major meetings for its MLAs.
On Wednesday, the BJP held a separate meeting of its MLAs, which included a rehearsal of how to cast votes for the MLC election under the supervision of senior leaders. Late Wednesday night, Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde met with his MLAs at Taj Lands End Hotel in Bandra for a closed-door meeting about the MLC election. Shiv Sena UBT leaders also held a meeting where senior party leaders briefed MLAs about the MLC elections.
There are 11 seats in the Maharashtra Legislative Council for which 12 nominations were filed. It will be interesting as the MVA has put forward a third candidate, despite having a quota that allows only two candidates to win this election. After consulting with other alliance partners, Shiv Sena UBT filed the nomination of Milind Narvekar, a close aide of Uddhav Thackeray, who has connections across all parties. Narvekar, being influential, has been tasked with managing the extra votes needed for a comfortable win for the MVA’s third candidate.
Congress leader Pradnya Satav and Farmers and Peasants Party senior leader Jayant Patil were the first two candidates of the MVA. After Narvekar filed his nomination as the third candidate, he was seen speaking to BJP and Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction) leaders in the assembly premises.
The MVA, which is made up of the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), and NCP (SP), has 64 seats on its bench, compared to the 181 seats held by the ruling BJP, Shiv Sena, and NCP combined. All parties are attempting to win over the votes of the 29 MLAs who are members of smaller parties.
Pankaja Munde, an OBC leader from Marathwada who just lost the Lok Sabha election to an NCP candidate, has been nominated by the BJP. Amit Gorkhe, Sadabhau Khot, Yogesh Tilekar, and Parinay Phuke—who has been given another chance—are the other contenders. Former MPs Bhawana Gawli and Krupal Tumane, whose tickets were withdrawn for the Lok Sabha elections due to anti-incumbency sentiment and unfavourable survey results, are fielded by Shinde’s Shiv Sena. Shinde has given these powerful leaders a backdoor entry to appease them. Ajit Pawar has shown confidence in his loyalists Shivajirao Garje and Rajesh Vitekar.
